The gargantuan military aid bill that passed last week and the Democrats’ Build Back Better package relied on similar legislative strategies for passage. The party saw the strategy through to secure money for war while abandoning it to fund social programs.

If we look at the contrast between the mammoth military aid package funding a trilogy of global conflicts the president signed into law last week, and the ambitious social safety net expansion that faded into oblivion in December 2021, it is hard to come to a different conclusion than this: Biden, and by extension the US Congress, simply didn’t consider the passage of this progressive wish list a priority, and cared far more about shipping nearly $100 billion off for foreign wars.

From Jacobin